Robots need polish

While looking through my wip folder I found a robot image that was so close to being finished I couldn't resist firing up Photoshop, and in no time at all he was ready for the world, so fresh off the production line I give you the Mars G12 Delta.

Futurepoly Week 3

Another Day and another update From Futurepoly. Week three was with Thomas Scholes and was all about techniques and tricks with photoshop that you can use to speed things up or solve problems. He showed a ton of very interesting approaches which I'll certainly be trying out and seeing how I can incorporate them into my workflow.

The main focus of the homework this week was the use of custom shapes, a technique that was recently made famous on the concept boards by Nicolas Bouvier aka Sparth. I've used this before in my work after seeing Nicolas post but I've never limited myself to solely using it to make thumbnails so I thought this would be a good test.

In my first batch of thumbs I just wanted to do black and white

Whilst doing my second lot of thumbs I added more value changes to create depth, I also started to make more structured shapes.

Finally I played around with some of the thumbs applying a few of the other techniques, such as painting with the smudge brush, sneaky transformation tricks, and custom brushes again for detailing. I didn't stick to my thumb as I wanted to use this image as an experiment so it ended up a bit odd but it was interesting just trying stuff out.

With the next custom shape images I want try just useing custom shapes and gradients and little or no painting at all, should be fun.

Futurepoly Week 2

Week two of Futureploy was with the excellent enviro artist Matthew Barrett the focus for this class was buildings or vehicles. I decided to work on a building and started the process with some thumbs. The first sheet below was just exploring styff in general but by the second one I had got a nordic style hut in mind.

After the thumbs I decided to concentrate on just the building and produced these sketches to decide on a final design

There was something about 5 that I liked so went with it, but after I finished I felt that I hadn't pushed the forms enough made a few tweaks to emphasize some of the forms.

and with that week 2 homework done :)

Futurepoly Week 1

As I mentioned in my previous post I've been doing the Futurepoly online course. The first week was with Horia Dociu and was about silhouette thumbs and character design.

The first two images below are my first batch of thumbs of a fantasy warrior character based around the theme of a beast

These next two images are my second pass after some pointers and paintovers from Horia about pushing the design and turning them from guys wearing clothes to characters in their own right.

Adventures with Futurepoly

I've said before and I'll it again "Learning is fun!"

I've always got time to learn and try something new as the journey is always the most fun for me, so recently I signed myself up for a futurepoly course which is run by a bunch of very talented artist from ArenaNet. It's made me try a lot of different approaches to my work, and experiment so my next few post are going to be homework from the previous weeks classes. I would post it now but I've got homework to do.....I haven't had to say that for a long time :D

Sofa sketches

Sometimes its nice to kickback and relax on the sofa with my Modbook and Sketchbook Pro and just doodle, here are some some of the random but fun results.

Here's a modbook sketch I did a while ago and every time I see it I think I really should work it up one of these days...its a guy with a big robot arm...and everyone likes a guy with a big robot arm don't they?

What I've Been Up To, Part 2...or BAFTAs and Books

So where was I? oh yes Kinect Sports....so just how well did Kinect Sports do? Amazingly!!!

The sales have been great and we're the number one Kinect title! We also won a Bafta!.....so not to shabby at all

but look there is a hoodie nicking it!.......yes it me :)

Probably the most exciting thing to happen over the last few months, yes more exciting than a bafta....don't tell the organizers...is that Gorillaartfare have got a book coming out soon and I'm in it. With so may talented artists in the group its an honor to be part of it.

Heres the blurb from gorillaartfare

We have the most exciting news today! Gorilla Artfare and CFSL Ink have joined forces to bring you a wonderful collection of artwork: Gorilla Artbook Vol 1!

The book is hardcover, sized 24×28 cm (9.4×11 inches approximately) and it holds 250+ pages of stunning images by more than 70 of our artists. It will be available for preorder on April 7th and released on April 14th!

We will share more info on pricing and where you can buy it real soon! Update: Some more info + a small preview of the interiors here! For now, feast your eyes on these previews of the cover (illustrated by Clo, Devin Platts & Tom Scholes, designed by Victoria Maderna & Federico Piatti):

Now thats just what I call a top post :)